Tale Begun In Other Days
by YouGottaSingAlong
Summary: John Smith see Human Nature/Family of Blood , Journal, Doctor, other stuff, please, I'll deal with the summary tomorrow. Do you have any idea what the time is?


Disclaimer: Don't own the poem, that's Lewis Carroll, and don't own Doctor Who, that's BBC

A/N: Thanks to Out Cold for getting this typed up while I was in solitary confinement. We expect lots of DW writing with the items you received for Christmas. This is... let's see; 10/Rose, Rose/John, Joan/John... me thinks that's all.

Dedication: Joint Christmas present for **enigma-kar** and **moonchild94 **both of whom are fantastic writers and an awesome laugh.

**This is set as if John Smith had never discovered the Doctor and had just continued dreaming Martha's years:**

_Child of the pure unclouded brow_

_And dreaming eyes of wonder!_

_Though time be fleet and I and thou_

_Are half a mile asunder_

_Thy loving smile with surely hail_

_The love gift of a fairy-tale._

"Grandpa, oh tell another… please Grandpa." A small child begged of her grandfather. She looked up at him with familiar expressive brown eyes. His eyes; perfectly fitted upon the child. His son's daughter. She had grown fast; already she too had begun noting down her dreams, someday – he knew – she would be a great novelist or a renowned poet.

He smiled, rolling his own eyes. "The Doctor himself couldn't put up with all your energy, Susan."

She looked immensely proud of herself as he made the statement. "Really?"

"Really really. Now, it's late. You get yourself to bed before your grandmother starts yelling at me for –"

As if on cue, Joan's head appeared at the door. "John Smith! Just once you might get that child to bed on time, or is this concept unknown to you?"

_I have not seen thy sunny face,_

_Nor heard thy silver laughter;_

_No thought of me shall find a place_

_In thy young life hereafter - _

_Enough that thou wilt not fail_

_To listen to my fairy-tale._

_It was strange_, John thought, _how I find myself pitying the Doctor. He can never know Rose Tyler. He can never miss her, nor cry for her, other than in my nonsensical dreams._ Rose Tyler. She always resurfaced, clear as the day in John's mind. Occasionally he feared for his sanity. For, like the Doctor and his blue box, she was a dream, a fantasy, a fairytale. Yet he loved her dearly. As dear as his own wife.

_Rose Tyler never thinks, not will ever think of me_, John laughed inside. _Despite this I love her._

_A tale begun in other days,_

_When summer suns were glowing –_

_A simple chime, that served to time_

_The rhythm of our rowing –_

_Whose echoes live in memory yet,_

_Though envious years would say, "Forget"._

Some days, when he awoke from his slumber with the mad eyed Time Lord fresh in his mind, before clarity faded, John would sit with his eyes closed for a few more seconds. To take in (as silly as it may have sounded to Joan, who had merely humoured him on hearing this ritual) the Gallifreyan sunset. It was a glorious sight to see those three orbs go down and it made John feel a connection with his Doctor. The only Time Lord in existence who could still watch Earth's Sun set and the only human to ever watch Gallifrey's… maybe he did get why Joan 'merely humoured' him…

The Doctor – and here was the irony John loved most – would have been happy to lose some of the pain that these memories brought. Despite this, his human self fed from the emotional tug it gave him.

_Come, hearken then, ere the voice of dread,_

_With bitter tidings laden,_

_Shall summon to an unwelcome bed_

_A melancholy maiden!_

_We are but older children, dear,_

_Who fret to find our bedtime near._

"John," Joan smiled, somewhat wistfully. She could sometimes swear that her husband cared more for 'Impossible Things' than his own family. He and little Susan would stay up for hours at a time sorting this Doctor's stories, forgetting about all else. "Get to bed; you play and fiddle with that book from morn to midnight. Why not publish it and be done."

John didn't blame his wife. She had spent the first ten years of their marriage complementing his drawings and dedication, the following twenty-five dropping despairing remarks. No, he didn't blame her. "Playing with it makes me feel young."

All the same, he gently closed the volume and joined his wife for the night.

_Without, the frost, the blinding snow,_

_The storm-winds moody madness_

_Within, the firelight's ruddy glow_

_And childhood's nest of gladness._

_The magic words shall hold thee fast:_

_Thou shalt not heed the raving blast._

John tossed in distress as the dreams once again took hold. This one felt wrong, there was no other way he could think of it. Wrong. As if it was not something that had already happened to the Doctor, but what was yet to occur.

_A red haired woman leant over a dying Ood in the snow. Blizzard approached from the east of the Ood Sphere. _(Donna Noble? John's subconscious asked. Who is she?) _The Master before the Time Vortex, the Doctor before the Time Vortex. Sarah and Martha and Jack bargaining with Davros. The fires burned around him as the Doctor walked towards the madman and his lightening. The knocking and the drums._

_Light burst from the Doctor._

John woke with a start. His latest Doctor was going to change soon. This thought gave him a twinge of sadness.

Maybe he would give up the Journal soon after all.


End file.
